Second Amendment ruling sparks debate on NJ gun laws

Today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling recognizing an individual's right to bear arms touched off immediate debate on how it will affect New Jersey's gun laws, which are among the toughest in the nation.

The way Attorney General Anne Milgram sees it, the high court ruling just strikes down the District of Columbia's complete ban on possession of handguns, and would have minimal if any impact on New Jersey's laws.

"We believe the court affirmed the rights of states to regulate gun ownership to protect public safety and endorsed common-sense licensing of firearms and concealed-weapons restrictions like we have in New Jersey,'' Milgram said.

But Evan Nappen, an Eatontown lawyer who focuses on firearams cases and has written a book on the state's gun laws, predicted the ruling "will dramatically affect New Jersey firearms law."

"Every gun law in New Jersey is now suspect of being a violation of the individual's right to keep and bear arms,'' Nappen said.

"The big picture, which everyone should look at, is for the first time in the history of the United States the Supreme Court has recognized the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right," Nappen continued. "Part of that right evolving will be challenges to New Jersey gun restrictions."

The ruling drew reactions from New Jersey lawmakers at both the federal and state levels.

"Today, President Bush's radical Supreme Court justices put rigid ideology ahead of the safety of communities in New Jersey and across the country," U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said. "The American people demand and deserve strong, common-sense laws to prevent gun violence." Lautenberg vowed to oppose "extremist judicial nominees" and to toughen restrictions on guns by banning their sale to suspected terrorists or at gun shows without a background check.

Ken Kurson, a spokesman for Lautenberg's Republican challenger, former congressman Dick Zimmer, said he was on a plane returning from a family vacation and could not be reached for comment. At a Republican primary debate at Fairleigh Dickinson University on April 22, Zimmer and his GOP opponents all said they understood the Second Amendment to confer an individual right to bear arms.

Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-8th Dist.) said he is "concerned" the ruling "will reach far beyond Washington, D.C. and open up the possibility for increased gun violence in New Jersey's urban neighborhoods."

But Assemblywoman Alison Littell McHose (R-Sussex), who had signed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the justices to uphold the right of citizens to protect themselves, applauded the ruling. "The court confirmed what I have been saying since becoming a legislator: People have the right to defend their homes and families and it is the role of legislators to protect individual rights, not take them away," McHose said.